


Stay Stay Stay

by oneawkwardcookie



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Emotional Baggage, Honorary mention of Frank, Insecure Eddie Diaz, Insecure Evan "Buck" Buckley, Insecurity, Introspection, M/M, Miscommunication, Relationship Advice, Relationship Discussions, Worried Eddie Diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneawkwardcookie/pseuds/oneawkwardcookie
Summary: They're both fighting to stay but moving in opposite directions. They've messed up in the past by trying to fix things with sex, but this seems to be the opposite problem.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 114





	Stay Stay Stay

**Author's Note:**

> They just need to talk to each other, which is why we need Frank, and Hen just echoes what he'd probably say (because she gives great advice!)
> 
> The tags are just to cover all the bases but I don't think this is quite as angsty as other things I've written (although it does reference the deep insecurities of both men...)
> 
> This came out of some late night angsty headcanons I had, and became a kind of character study...enjoy!

When Buck starts slowing things down or outright turning him down, it's easy for him to think that Buck doesn't really want him anymore. Or... he can’t think of any other reason why Buck would moan into his ear, grinding down against him, and then immediately pull away with a groan and say he wants to wake up early to go for a bike ride so he should get to bed, making his way upstairs before Eddie even has a chance to say anything back. He’d quietly let himself out, going back a silent house, a cold shower and a colder bed.

The thoughts that were swirling around his head as he went to sleep continue their winding path as he drives into work and absentmindedly gets changed.

He’s a private person, especially with those things closest to his heart, and though he’s opened up in so many ways to the family he’s found at the 118, there’s some things that are only for him, and other things that are only for him and Buck. He understands that, between how important the job is to them both and how close Buck had come to a formal reprimand after the well rescue.

It’s still hard not to…wonder. They’ve been on a few dates, or at least they’ve been out a few times and actually called them dates, compared to all the times they’d spent together before that were dates in all but name.

He makes an effort, and not in a grand gesture type of way, but in a ‘I know you so well by now and that just makes it easier to show you how much I care’ sort of way. He avoids the beach, the revolving restaurant, the places he knows that Buck went to with Abby or Ali. He picks places that are a notch above comfortable, something to let Buck know that he wants…more. But Buck wants to stay in, wants to make sure they’re going to a part of town that no-one else is that night, wants to avoid even the hint of a possibility of bumping into anyone they know.

Eddie’s fine with being private, with slowly weaving this new strand round the string that has already bound them together. Slow is one thing though. This seems… he’s not sure. Frank’s voice pops up in his head, telling him that he doesn’t know what other people are thinking and to not make other people’s decisions for them. Except he’s not. Buck has made it abundantly clear that they shouldn’t fill out any HR forms yet, although the yet is, as of yet, undefined.

It’s not just the public side of it. It’s… he’s not pushy. He’s been alone for so long, and life is so busy either way that it isn’t something he needs. But he’s getting better at looking beyond the bare minimum, at asking himself questions about how he feels and what he wants.

What he wants is Buck. And he gets him. Well, almost all of him.

He hadn’t noticed it at first, what with just how often they casually touched each other beforehand, never more than a few finger-lengths away. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to reach out and slot his fingers between Buck’s, pressing their palms together as they went for a stroll after dinner. Their first date gave him the kind of butterflies he thought he was too old and jaded for, so it wasn’t until the second date, where Buck had hovered in his doorway instead of just walking in as normal, that he’d pulled him inside and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, to the curve of his jaw, to those cherry wine lips.

This is all so new to him, but Buck isn’t. He feels like he’s known him for an eternity, as though Buck was formed from the same stardust he was, just waiting for Eddie to come to LA before becoming his everything. And he thought that he, they, were both getting there, slowly but surely.

Does he not want to sleep with Eddie? He knows about Buck 1.0 and his flings, but they all appear to have been women, from what Chim delightfully and Hen disapprovingly told him. Maybe he doesn't want men that way, just wants... whatever it is that they have: a best friends, family, co-parents with some benefits kind of situation.

He's messed up in the past by trying to fix things with sex, but this seems to be the opposite problem. He's clearly thinking too loudly when Hen pulls him to the benches and asks him if he's alright.

His eyes flick around, finding that there's no one near the locker room. For once, he's glad for the glass walls, shoulders slumping as he sits next to Hen.

"So... if I was in a relationship with... someone –"

"If?" Hen is too perceptive for his fumbling words, but he decides to power on, hoping the advice he gets will be worth the inevitable teasing in the future.

He sighs, "– and they keep putting off sleeping with me, how do I let them know that that's something I want or find out why they don't want to?"

Hen waits for him to look up before answering. "I’m going to ignore the pronoun game you just played, but maybe they're asexual?"

He swallows the scoff that almost comes out of his mouth. "No that's definitely - I'm sure that's not it."

Hen opens her mouth but seems to decide against whatever she was going to say, with a small shake of her head. "Okay, if you're so sure, then I'm assuming you've talked to them about it?"

"It's not something he - they've said, it's just the way they act and maybe it's not even a thing, maybe I'm just..."

He peters off, uncertainty and the slip of the tongue that he's sure Hen wouldn't have missed making it hard for him to maintain eye contact.

"Good talk, Hen," he mumbles into the hand that scrubs his face, to try and end the embarrassment that's creeping up his chest and warming his cheeks.

"You'll be alright, Eddie. You’ve just gotta talk about it." The hand on his shoulder is all warm acceptance and faith in him, and he tries to hold onto that when Buck walks in.

*

He's deliberately sent Chris to the Wilsons, ignoring the knowing look on Hen and Karen's face as he kisses his son goodbye. When Buck turns up half an hour later with another Scalextric set and a tray of flapjacks, he waits until he's dropped both things on the coffee table before letting him know that it's just them two.

The flicker of fear in Buck's eyes doesn't help his own nerves so when he walks forward to grab Buck's hands, it's as much a grounding gesture for him as it is a way to keep Buck close.

"I didn't want us to be interrupted." Some of the tension in Buck's shoulders drops but he still has his head cocked to the side as he joins him on the sofa, looking like he might pull a runner at any second, or shoot forward to hold onto Eddie as though he's just come back from the dead again.

"Do you not want me?" The words aren't the ones he's planned but they're still the heart of every question inside him, for Buck, and for the world at large in a way.

"Of course I do." It's said so plainly, naked honesty mixed with a hint of confusion, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world. Except it's _not._

"I feel like you're pulling away. Every time I want you, us –" God, why can't he just say the words. Probably God but he's a grown man, he can learn to get past that when he's learnt so much more over the last few years. "– is there a reason you won't have sex with me?"

Buck’s eyes have widened in a way that would be comical if it weren’t for the way his head is craned forwards, shoulders still set. "Is that all you want?"

"Yes!"

The grief is a lightning bolt.

"Shit, no, that's not all I want from you, God, Buck I thought you knew that by now! I thought we were…" Partners, boyfriends, together - none of the words are right.

"We were?" 

"We're so much more than that." He takes Buck's hands again because he needs him to know, to fully understand what this means to Eddie, the gravity of them together, because they've been in each others’ orbits since day one and the way they kept passing each other by, they were bound to collide at some point. Except it's not a collision, it's a union - an alignment of the stars.

"I’ve seen every part of you, Buck. Every part of your mind, your soul, your heart. I know you. I don’t scare easy." He swallows down the ‘I don’t leave’, because that’s not his anymore and it doesn’t belong to Buck, but Buck sees. He notices and he knows, like he always has.

"Life is…messy." Buck throws his head vaguely upwards and backwards, and Eddie knows what he means. Shannon, the firetruck explosion, the lawsuit – sometimes he doesn’t know what the universe wants with him, what it wants for them. "I just don’t want to ruin things. It’s –" he bites his tongue on what sounds like a familiar speech, "I don’t want to rush in, fall too far too fast. People always say I need to look before I leap."

The pleading look in Buck’s eyes doesn’t entirely mask the fearful hope that lingers behind it. I don’t scare easily, Eddie reminds himself. "Too late for me."

Buck chokes on whatever he was about to say, and Eddie is reaching across to thump his back before he realizes it. His hand stays on Buck long after the coughs subside, and when Buck brings his own hand onto Eddie’s back, he doesn’t know whether to lean back into it or forward towards where Buck is waiting.

He settles for pulling Buck towards him. "Can we do this?"

He doesn't have the words, and even if he does, they never make it out of his mouth without being warped by the strength of his emotions. But he has his actions, and he knows his eyes have always betrayed things even his mouth didn't, so he lets the silence linger, lets Buck look at where he's rubbing a thumb over Buck's palm, lets Buck see the true extent of his feelings in his eyes.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

It’s Buck’s turn to let his actions do the talking.

*

"We can blame Hen for this." The warmth is back in Buck’s voice.

"Blame? I didn't think - hang on, did Hen tell you we spoke?"

"No, I - wait, you spoke to her too?"

Eddie can't help but snort at the incredulous tone of Buck's voice and rolls his eyes fondly at the thought of their colleague being stuck in the middle. “What did she say to you?"

There’s a pause as Buck takes a few deep breaths. "In the past, it’s always been about me not accepting when relationships are over or people always leaving me behind, leaving me period. There was a man that stole my identity once, and there were all these women who thought I had led them on and everyone just…believed them."

"That’s not –"

"I know you wouldn’t have." The infinite patience in Buck’s voice soothes the protective instinct that was rising in his chest. They really have changed each other in so many ways.

"I told Hen I was scared because people always leave once they've got what they want. She said I shouldn't be afraid of putting myself out there and that the right person would stay." With the way Buck is pressed against him, he doesn't miss the waver in his voice at the last word, the tremor in his chest, where he can feel every pounding heartbeat.

"I'm not going anywhere," he lets himself drag his fingers lazily through Buck's curls, "not unless you are."

"I'm not, you guys are...my world. It’s just…I just didn't want this to ruin it."

"You didn't, you haven't. You won't. This doesn't change that, it just...adds to it."

"You were a lot more coherent before," Buck says with a chuckle.

"Well I think I can definitely _blame_ you for that, except I think I'm still far too coherent for someone with another... 10 hours before we have to pick up Christopher."

The look in Buck’s eyes doesn’t feel like a tease this time, and he doesn’t care that he’s smiling more than kissing back. He wants Buck and Buck wants him and that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always super lovely to get, or you can come and shout at me on [tumblr](https://oneawkwardcookie.tumblr.com/) if that's preferable! Alternatively, you can shout at Kat (@kitkat0723) because this appears to have been in response to her trying to out angst me (not today, Kat, not today...)
> 
> **
> 
> I skipped the sex scene in the middle because...that's not my thing to write (in more ways than one) but it's implied, hence the T rating.
> 
> The title was initially inspired by Mikky Ekko's Stay (Rihanna version), but the following lyrics from Taylor Swift's Stay Stay Stay seem oddly perfect:  
> You took the time to memorize me  
> My fears, my hopes and dreams  
> I just like hanging out with you  
> All the time  
> All those times that you didn't leave  
> It's been occurring to me  
> I'd like to hang out with you  
> For my whole life


End file.
